The Bioethics Institute at Loyola Marymount University is pleased to welcome philosopher William Desmond as the O’Malley Visiting Chair this spring.

A native of Ireland, Desmond is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium), and the Cook Visiting Chair in Philosophy at Villanova University. The author of over 20 books, Desmond is a preeminent philosopher in the fields of metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and philosophy of religion.

“The work of Professor Desmond is truly breathtaking,” said Roberto Dell’oro, professor of theology and director of the Bioethics Institute at LMU. “American philosopher Paul Weiss once called Desmond ‘the leading philosopher of his generation.’ It is a great honor for the Institute and for LMU to host such a prodigious scholar on our campus.”

As the Visiting O’Malley Chair, Desmond will deliver a spring lecture series, most notably the O’Malley Chair Lecture titled “Chattel of the Gods: Assisted Suicide the Politics of Patience.” He has an office in the Bioethics Institute and will share in the intellectual life of the Institute for the time of his stay.

Desmond’s work has grappled with the biggest questions in the field: Why is there being and not nothing? What does it mean to be? What is to be good? What of being religious, and how does mindfulness of reality alert the thinker to the signs of the divine at the heart of things?

“His work reveals a freshness of thinking, and a moving, in fact poetic, originality of language,” Dell’oro said. “We look forward to a fruitful and thoughtful semester with this important thinker.”